I wonder if anybody here could share their experience with Stolen Device Protection.
For some reason I cannot remember, I decided to not enable it. Maybe because I was at my cabin in the woods at the time. On a trip to a local city, standing waiting for the bus with my iPhone unlocked to show to the bus driver, I realized situations like that are when a snatch of the phone could be troublesome. I am interested in hearing from those of you who have had it enabled for some time. Is it a lot of additional hassle? I have a lot of Apple devices, some on old OSās. I seem to remember that was an issue? I have an Apple Watch that is online, so I would be able to enable āLost modeā fast.
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I turn it on when I travel and turn it off most of the time otherwise. Iām actually considering turning it all of the time again, but I changed to this way when I went to the Apple Store to do something (battery replacement maybe?) that required turning off Find My on the device and forgot that I had stolen device protection turned on, so that started the one hour timer - they were kind enough to let me come back an hour later. Since round-trip back home and back to the Apple Store would have been exactly an hour, it was easier to hang out in the nearby coffee shop and come back.
Thatās always been my thought, too, with the caveat that if you are traveling internationally, you would need to connect it to WiFi somewhere - mobile data does not work for those of us in the US who travel outside North America, and I think itās the same outside the US, too, though EU citizens may be ok roaming within the EU.
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Iāve had it turned on since shortly after it was released. I canāt recall any problems or difficulties caused by it.
There was some requirement that all devices on the same iCloud account be on a certain version of their OS, as you said.
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Data roaming depends on your carrier and the plan you are on. We have EU wide unlimited data and calls āsame as homeā but our US visits are a set price per day for a set amount of data.
The Find My system uses a range of technologies not dependent upon your plan though, Bluetooth, GPS and others, folks have reported being able to track their stolen devices in other countries.
Well observed, @paal !
I may have considered it when it came out but it appears to require additional (to me) intrusive settings such as biometrics, location and significant locations, and being logged in to lots of stuff and itās just too opaque, interwoven and confusing for me.
Instead, I try to keep so little personal data on the iPhone that it wonāt be a great loss if stolen, and I take physical protective measures to limit that risk too. These, for me, are easier than keeping track of all the gadgetsā settings and stuff that has to be on for it to work. Get one setting wrong and it might not work as expected, and you would only find out when itās too late.
For my simple lifestyle this works, ymmv.
If travel and risk exposure is necessary though, maybe it would work to sync the iPhone before travel, sort of āsanitiseā it, turn on the protections, and reverse all that when back. If Apple lets you ;-)
Just want to add that Iād forgotten I even had SDP turned on until I saw this thread. In my experience, it has been unobtrusive and hasnāt had any impact on the daily use of my iPhone and iPad.
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Iāve also had it on ever since it came out. Never got in the way of anything.
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I turned it on in my iPhone after I upgraded to iOS 17, but only after I made sure that it recognized my actual home and work locations as āfamiliar locationsā. Since then, Iāve never seen the one-hour delay prompt.
My notes say that Maps seemed to track the home and work location by the address, not the GPS coordinate. So, for example, Maps thought my home location was the apartment office, not my actual apartment. The fix was the āreviseā the location in Maps to be the exact home and work locations.
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IIRC, v26.4 will turn this feature on by default. Does Apple tell its users to turn off Find My and Stolen Device Protection for Apple repairs?
They shouldnāt have to tell you to turn off SDP. But SDP may get in the way of you turning off Find My.
Apple and other repair shops tell you to turn off Find My in case the repair is going to involve replacing the motherboard. If they replace the board and Find My is enabled, then that board is permanently locked to your iCloud account, making it impossible for Apple to refurbish it for later deployment to another customer.
For something easy like a battery replacement or a new screen, thereās no reason turning off Find My should be required (unless the repair goes terribly wrong and the motherboard needs to be replaced as a result). But itās easier to just tell all customers to do this before handing over equipment.
The last time I booked an appointment, the instructions for āprepare for your appointmentā included knowing your passcode because you will need to disable Find My. But the instructions donāt remind you to do so at home if you have stolen device protection turned on - perhaps it should.